My Feng Has Lost Its Shui

We put the Christmas tree up last night and I decided last minute it just had to go in front of the window instead of the same place behind the sofa where it has been for three years now. What is unbelievable about the sentence I just typed is the fact WE have been in the same place for three – now four – years. Prior to now our record for Christmases in one home is TWO.

Ahh, ministry. The stability you bring.

So anyway, I love to rearrange furniture but our living room holds few options considering our entertainment monstrosity has to go on one certain wall and there are doorways, pathways, etc. that hinder other arrangements. Since it is Christmas, I’m willing to deal with a little bit of unusualness in furniture placement but what I’ve got going on right now has totally thrown off my chi.

And I’m not talking about my flat iron. I don’t have a Chi flat iron but if any of y’all are feeling generous….

{Disclaimer: I should probably pause here to assure you I do not ascribe to Asian philosophy. It’s humor, peeps. Or an attempt anyway.}

So as of right now my coffee table is what’s throwing me all out of whack. It’s in an awkward spot and sits right in front of the tree from one angle, but looks okay from the other. Tell me, would this drive y’all crazy?

See, it’s sort of okay this way……..

…..but awkward here. Granted to see it from this angle you have to be standing in a doorway and not seated in the room.

I tried moving the table out all together but then the room looks so bare in the middle.

Tell me – Am I totally overreacting? Am I just afraid of change? Is this really nothing considering our Lord was born in a cave?

Wow. I mean, WOW. I think I just answered my own question.

I feel better now.

Going to set up my nativity and finish decorating that tree now. (In the first picture did y’all notice that rogue limb on the tree bottom that needs chopping? That’s driving me crazy, too. Where are those dern trimmers?!?!)

*Breathe, Lisa. Remember Jesus, Lisa*

As you were.

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37 comments

I feel your pain… We have the same problem with a few chairs and our tree… but for what it’s worth, when I find myself in a decorating delima, I just pray that people will see Jesus in our house and not the things that bug me! (Maybe I should also pray that I’LL see Jesus in our house, too! Wonder if that will alter my having to clean the bathrooms?)

Lisa just tell me that you do clean up and stuff before you take pictures or I am going to heap a load of condemnation on my bad house keeping skillz. Ok I need to go get back in the word!!I think it looks great!!!

Oh, Lisa I feel your pain. I am already hyperventilating just thinking about the fact that I have to move my loveseat to another location to accommadate the tree! Makes my OCD go into overdrive… Your tree looks beautiful. Just remember, it’s only for a little while…

I just read your blog :) I don’t know what is over there where the chair is but could you not put the tree over in that corner and the chair in front of the window? It looks fine the way you have it to. :) :) Your house is looking great.

I think it looks good where it is. But I do understand what you’re saying about the one weird angle. Seriously though, no one is going to be examining it like you are (or I would if it was my house)! :)

We don’t have our tree up yet! And it makes me sad.. but life just hasn’t allowed for that!

That is the funniest title for a blog post ever! I laughed when I read it even before the read the post. I don’t think you are overreacting. I hate it when things are not symmetrical, even for a good reason.

It looks fine to me, but I’m probably not the best one to ask. I’m more about functionality. Is the coffee table close enough to the couch to rest your feet on? I was more intrigued about the colour of your tree. It looks 2 toned in your pics. Very nice!

Change is good! (Especially when it is someone else doing the changing!) ;) Embrace the change. Get rid of the coffee table for the holidays and it will be so fun to pull it out again in January — like seeing an old friend. I would try removing the coffee table and angling the sofa to face the tree a little, if your room can accomodate that.

I think it looks great, but if you’re still not satisfied maybe pull the sofa around slightly, angling it to face the tree a little(looking at pic #1) and then you can move your table around to the same angle and there’d be more room. Then again, that may throw you for a bigger loop! ha! Love the tree, btw.

Just remember our house with the oh so noticeable no mantle and the tree that goes behind the sofa and not seen by anyone sitting in the living room! Longest sentance ever written that made no sense. :D

Didn’t someone say something once about lovely Christmas tree branches? (Maybe if I hum a few bars…)I play “shuffle the Christmas tree” every year. I have yet to find the perfect spot. (BTW. Don’t get a CHI they’ve changed something and they aren’t so reliable anymore. We are going to carry a different one at the salon now.)

Lisa, It looks absolutley fine the way it is. I think having the “extras” in the house such as the tree and the nick nacks sitting around mess with our psyche anyway. Things just aren’t “normal”. But as you said, stop and enjoy the beauty of God’s creation in your living room, no matter where your coffee table is!

I’m wondering if you could scoot your rug up against the front of the couch, if that would give it a more complete look. I think the bare wood showing is what is throwing things off. Bare floor on the other side of the room wouldn’t be a distraction. Just my two cents,…and I love reading your writings!Michelle

I totally get this. I did a WFMW post back in, oh, summer, I think on Putting The Kitchen Table WHERE?

That will be updated soon as I have now gone all “Livingston Parish” as my husband says. You won’t get that unless you live here. My kitchen and living room are open. I have a breakfast nook that just DOES not accommodate our table. My formal dining room was converted to a nursey–party why we moved here in ’06. Sophie…

I have put my tree in the foyer since we’ve lived her. BUT this year, the 15 (almost 16) year old just HAD to have a real tree. Thought about moving the chair and ottoman I have in the breakfast nook to put the tree up and the train that has been tucked away since we’ve lived here because I COULDN’T FIGURE IT OUT….wouldn’t work. Now I have a ginormongous live tree in my foyer. It worked, though. But no train…perhaps next year. For now…I’m a bit focused on a party for a husband who just happens to turn 40 tomorrow…NO today, it’s already began.

I really should sleep…but he was worth the birthday post that took FOR-ev-ER to do.

Oh, I digress….your coffee table…hmmm, could you move the couch and table on an angle slightly? Pull them away a bit? I’m finding that doing the unexpected thing sometimes works best. Love having a sitting area in my little nook. And my bar height table is working fine in the living area…it’s all open anyway…

Don’t be afraid to change things in a non-traditional way. BUT, rethink turning the tree upside down. Y’all seeing that there? I’m just not getting it…weird. All wrong.

i feel your pain. we’ve been in our house for 2 years now (we’re also a ministry family–my husband is a youth pastor) and finding somewhere to put the tree just about puts me over the edge. i think even worse than that is finding somewhere to put all my “stuff” that normally adorns various shelves to make room for the christmas “stuff”. ah! i need a strong mocha and a tylenol just thinking about it.

My feng didn’t even know it was missing it’s shui. It’s THAT BAD here right now.

But I have to say, from one constant mover to another, isn’t it nice to already KNOW where your Christmas decor is going when you get it out of the box? The first year in a new place is always the toughest.

I’m getting so old, I’ve taken to SNAPPING PICTURES of all the decorations once I’m happy with them so I’ll remember where they go next year.

I think it looks great! Nice and Homey. That being said, I lack the Interior Design Gene. Just think though, on Christmas morning you can use the coffee table as shelter during wrapping paper fights. :)

On a completely random note, I found your blog because I was looking for a pump to go with my MONDO bottle of Tresemme shampoo. I kept thinking that the blog title looked familiar and after some investigating I see that you seem to know Kecia Sandusky! Mike was my campus minister in college at Idaho and they are like a second family to us! What a small world!

Lisa,I love the blog, and the title. Seeing your tree up (mine is not up yet), reminds me of a story that I heard about Martin Luther and the Christmas Tree. The story is about how the Christmas Tree became just that…the Christmas Tree.

Legend tells that Martin Luther, who was one of the founders of the Protestant Faith, was walking through the forest one Christmas Eve. As he walked he set his gaze heavenward looking through the canopy the trees had created overhead. Luther was awed…amazed by the beauty of millions of stars glimmering through the branches of the evergreen trees. He was so taken by the beauty he saw that he deeply desired to share this experience with his family. In this moment of longing for his family to understand the beauty in God’s creation he decided to recreate the experience for them to the best of his ability. So, he quickly cut down an evergreen tree and took it into his home. He then carefully placed a candle on each and every branch, explaining to his family the wonder he witnessed on his walk through God’s woods that night.

I love this story, because it is one more reminder that draws our hearts to the creator during this time of year. In a time when the Christmas Tree has been so commercialized it is nice to reflect on the beauty of a carefully lit tree and understand that God Almighty placed the stars that might have opened the mind to the idea in the first place!

It also reminds me of the passage of scripture in John 14:6 when Jesus said: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” So, my answer to your decorating dilema is turn off the lights, grab your husband and your kids and lay under the tree looking up through the branches, and tell them the story of Martin Luther! Maybe when the lights are off in the rest of the room you won’t even notice the coffee table! (HA! HA!)

Enjoy your tree! Enjoy the lights, and I’m sure your Chi will be where you left it before the tree messed it all up!

Thanks for your humor, your encouragement, and a needed distraction for a girl that is having a hard time sleeping these days…I’m not sure if it is because of the fast approaching big 40 or the last diet Pepsi I drank! Maybe I’ll go move my coffee table and put my tree up now! Happy Decorating!